Countryside BBQ — Restaurant in Marion

It's been awhile since I've eaten here, but it wasn't as good as I remembered it being. The last time I had Countryside BBQ was at my cousin's wedding when she had it catered by them. The food served at the wedding was great and something that you would want to eat again, our experience at the restaurant was not any of that.

The menu sounds great, and they have a nice selection of items that you want to try, especially the daily specials. The problem we had was almost all of the food that was served to us either tasted like it had been prepared several hours in advance and was dried out and barely warm, or it tasted like it was straight out of the freezer and warmed up.

We tried the pickle fries for an appetizer, they were okay, but nothing to write home about. The ranch dressing that they served with them was better than the actual pickle fries. Actually all of their sauces were great: ranch, honey mustard, and barbecue.

I tried the BBQ and chicken fingers with white slaw, macaroni and cheese, and fried okra. The chicken fingers were dried out and just average, nothing special. The BBQ was on the dry side and had almost no flavor without sauce. Truly great BBQ is usually so juicy and full of flavor that you don't even need to add sauce to it. The okra was straight out of the freezer and super greasy. The white slaw had a wonderful texture that was very pleasing to your mouth. I loved how finely chopped the vegetables were, it just needed to be punched up with flavor a touch. Even adding some black pepper to it made it a little better, but it still wasn't something special that you want to have again and tell everyone about. The white cheddar macaroni and cheese did have a great taste, but again it was served barely luke warm like it had been prepared several hours ago and had been sitting under a warming lamp forever. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had been piping hot and fresh.

The other person in my party tried the BBQ and fried shrimp with baked beans. The beans were okay, again, nothing special. The shrimp, again, tasted like it was straight out of the freezer and was nothing special.

On a positive note, the tea and the service that we received was excellent and was at least one redeeming quality of the experience. I don't know if we hit the restaurant on an off day/time or if this is just par for the course for them. Either way, it will probably be awhile before we try this place...

This is my second time eating here. My family and I ate here again on Valentine's Day (a very busy day, to say the least) a little after 5. It was somewhat packed, but there were plenty of tables left. Our waitress was so very nice and doing such an amazing job despite having so many more people coming in. The entire staff was helping each other bring out food, engage with the tables, etc. Each staff member that came by our table, helped with any request that I had, and that I passed by to use the restroom was super nice.

We all ordered some BBQ, chicken, and sides. Everything but the chicken was amazing. I wasn't a fan of the chicken as it was dry. I am sorry. The other meats were super tender and wonderful without a doubt. I love their BBQ sauces and sides. I highly recommend the pasta salad, macaroni & cheese, hushpuppies, sweet potato fries, and home fries. I haven't gotten around to trying the other side items right yet, but I'm certain they are just as wonderful. I love their ranch! And don't get me started on the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake + Ice Cream. Oh my gosh! Talk about addicting!

I absolutely love this little gem in Marion. And I applaud the entire restaurant on how hard they worked on V-Day as by the time we were done with dinner, there were no more tables available, and people were actually standing in line to be seated. Great job...

Wow we love our bbq JDs barbecue in Rutherford college is delicious. Woodlands in blowing Rock is delicious. Carolina BBQ in Newland is delicious. Our family stopped in here and we weren't super hungry but we were hungry. We were gonna order a regular BBQ sandwich but all that came with it was a side of slaw? Which usually bbq sandwiches come with anyway. So the waitress told us about the huge BBQ sandwich that was on special with a side. So we got 2 of the specials and our granddaughter had the chicken tenders. We told them we wanted Ranch dressing for the tenders and fries. So they brought out 2 scrawny chicken tenders and she had to wait on her fries. Then they brought her honey mustard? So a different waitress was there we told her we needed ranch. So she left and brought back 1 container of ranch?? We still needed ranch then they brought her fries and we told them we needed ranch again. In which they brought us 3 packets of Ken's salad dressing sauce. We used it. Now as for the bbq. If that was a supersized sandwich I hated to see the small and there was absolutely no flavor. The only flavor was from the bbq sauce which was good the bbq itself was not good. There was no flavor . I hope that the other bbq dishes are better because which I'm sure they are but I would definitely make sure that if I had bbq in my name that it was...